Posted Toronto Political Panel: We’ll probably never know for sure what happened between Thomson and Ford

We'll probably never know for sure what happened between Sarah Thomson and Rob Ford

The Post‘s Matt Gurney and Chris Selley, and NOW‘s Jonathan Goldsbie, try to make sense out of the bombshell sexual harassment allegations made against Mayor Rob Ford last week.

Gurney: There are a lot of things you could say about the mayor that I would believe. There are a lot of things I’ve heard about this mayor that I do believe. But I have a very hard time believing that he did, indeed, grab Sarah Thomson’s ass at a fundraising event last week. The bombshell allegations have been the talk of the town since they were made by Thomson, first via social media and then in the media media. I reiterate that I have a really hard time believing that Rob Ford would make a pass at a woman and then grope her in full view of hundreds of people while facing a bunch of cameras. I also find that Thomson’s story has raised a lot of questions. And yet we’ve all heard horror stories of women reporting assaults who were subsequently ignored or belittled, so every time I come close to just dismissing the story, that little sliver of doubt creeps back in and I check myself. So before turning it over to you gents for your thoughts on this bizarre episode, I’ll just make an observation: Even people who do not like Ford, and whose feminist bona fides are unshakeable, seem to be viewing Thomson’s allegations with some skepticism. Does that speak to the fact that Ford seems an unlikely guy to have done this? Does it reflect some sense that Thomson may not be entirely credible? Or am I misreading the mood out there?

Selley: On Friday I retweeted a headline attached to this story and commented ruefully that “it never ends,” by which I simply meant to say, without assigning blame to anyone, that the circus surrounding Rob Ford never ends. At least two people took it as an affront to Sarah Thomson — as if I had lumped her in with some kind of anti-Ford cabal whose attacks never end. At first I couldn’t believe anyone would read it that way, but then I recalled the state of Toronto politics, and it made horrible sense. Stories like this are very, very painful, on both a personal and a broader level, because, let’s face it, we’ll probably never know for sure what really happened. And yet both parties will have to live with the public conclusion, whatever it is. I don’t know either Ford or Thomson well at all, but on the evidence I have available to me I have concluded that both are generally personable, decent, likeable and well-meaning individuals. If one did something horrible to the other, he or she deserves sanction. But the idea of anyone “picking sides” in this dispute, in the absence of any more conclusive evidence than we have right now, and in such a volatile and corroded political atmosphere, just makes me sick to my stomach.

Thought it was a friendly hello to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford at the CJPAC Action Party tonight until he suggested I… http://t.co/wx6a2ZW1ic

Goldsbie: The idea of discussing duelling levels of credibility strikes me as uncouth. And yet dismissing the situation by making overtures to the ultimate unknowability at its core is arguably even more problematic. Perhaps all that can meaningfully be done — as Ivor Tossell demonstrated for Maclean’s — is to use this as a springboard for an examination of a professional political culture in which women are routinely, even casually, harassed. Or of an environment in which women are perpetually underrepresented among elected leaders, and in which issues that disproportionately affect women often go unaddressed. It’s all kind of terrible and sad, but if we can at least extract from this incident some consideration of the various, intermingled systemic problems that women face (in politics and in general), then perhaps it can become something other than an ideological black hole. In reality, however, I would imagine that Forum Research is conducting a “Who do you believe?” automated phone poll at this very moment.

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